Ari Haswari
Description Ari is a slender, wiry, darkly attractive woman. She has focused eyes, an intense stare, and an eternally-calm demeanor. She dresses to suit the occasion -- practical, flashy, whatever suits the mission. Character History Ari's history and motivations, as a woman, remain much the same as her male canon counterpart, except many psychological aspects are heightened. Her father found it difficult to use a woman as a spy against Hamas; she had to work twice as hard and be twice as good to even have a hope of fulfilling his lowest expectations. As a woman, her murder of Kate takes on new connotations. Yes, Gibbs did remind her of her father; yes, she shot Kate because Kate was valuable to Gibbs. However, there are parallels between Kate and Ari that are impossible to avoid, only, where Kate had Gibbs as a father figure, Ari's father was much harsher, less forgiving, and at the root of much of Ari's twisted psychology. In the case of a female Ari, her motivation would not have only been an attack on Gibbs but jealousy of Kate herself. Likewise, as a woman, the environment she inhabited for most of her life would pose a significant risk for sexual assault. Ari herself has been a victim of sexual violence, but her skill, and her ruthlessness, guarantee that anyone who ever assaulted her was killed soon after. Personality Ari is a Hamas terrorist. Or she's an undercover Mossad agent working within Hamas. Or she's playing a game with Mossad and using its resources for her own purposes -- or she's loyal, but with the occasional deviation -- or she's a psychotic bitch who cares for nothing but violence. She takes great pains to keep her true loyalties hidden, switching from one to another as the occasion presents itself. She even keeps the breadth of her own knowledge and awareness hidden; she has a tendency to ask questions she already knows the answers to, just to see what other people say. She's very calm, very skilled, a calculated gambler, always focused on the mission. However, as far as her true motivations go, much of it is centered around her father. As a Mossad agent, he had an affair with a Muslim woman on purpose, in order to have a child, a child who would be the perfect undercover agent to infiltrate Hamas. He expected a boy, and one he could train up as he wanted, but what he got was a girl. And once he had Ari, he discarded her mother. Ari grew up not only with the simmering resentment at the way he treated her mother, but also the constant frustration and disdain of a father who never saw her as nearly good enough. And Ari clearly preferred her mother. During medical school in Scotland, she went exclusively by her mother's surname Haswari, ignoring the first name given to her by her Israeli father, and his David surname. Deception is extremely important to her. She doesn't just ask testing questions to mislead others as to what she knows -- she asks it because she wants to hear them lie. Her father, in her eyes, is a liar. And liars, and people who try to trick her, have crossed the line. She no longer feels any obligation to keep them safe, or avoid killing them. And yet, in some twisted double standard, Ari herself lies constantly, to the point where even those closest to her don't know for sure what side she's on. Frankly, Ari doesn't put a real moral spin on lying. She just hates it, in other people. It is necessary in herself. Ari, though, is charming. Sweet, at times. Good at making conversation. Worked in a clinic, for a long time. And this isn't a deceptive front -- Ari does take satisfaction from healing others. It's nice. But it's a luxury. She might set a child's broken leg, watch from a window weeks later as the child runs again, for the first time. And then, the next day, set off a bomb that slaughters the child's family. If it's necessary. Necessity overrides all other moral or aesthetic concerns. The way she initially appears has some truth in it -- the mission comes first, always. Sexuality Ari is most comfortable in sexual relationships that involve deception. She will not become intimate with anyone who doesn't have something she wants -- she needs something to gain before she takes that step. Furthermore, she likes power. Relationships, for her, are situations where she knows more (and can carefully catalogue each time her partner lies to her), where she's pursuing a goal, where she's doing the manipulating. That isn't to say that she wouldn't like the person she's with, or enjoy what they do together; she can have satisfaction and fulfillment from a relationship. But she doesn't make decisions based on satisfaction or fulfillment. When it comes time to take what she needs, or when the person is useless to her goals, she won't think twice about killing them. So, it begs the question -- can Ari really feel? Can she pursue a normal relationship? The answer, as it stands now, is no. Certainly she felt something genuine for Kate -- intrigued, attracted, surprised. But even with that, when she wanted to truly hurt Gibbs, she shot Kate anyway, with only the barest hint of remorse. As far as gender goes, Ari is primarily attracted to women, but has been unable to express that side of herself given the environment she lives in. And she will use men as necessary to get what she wants. Category:Characters